photo: bil ward's brickpile/ BY-NC-SA

This week Oakland welcomed the Breathmobile—a 33 ft. RV equipped to function as a mobile asthma clinic. The Breathmobile offers asthma treatment and education to Oakland students from elementary school all the way through high school. The RV consists of a small waiting room, a testing area for vital signs including allergen skin testing, and one exam room. Services are offered to students who don’t have medical coverage. The RV first kicked off their services at Emeryville Elementary school in Oakland.

Dulce Santiago, program specialist for the Breathmobile, said she was surprised to see so much attention for the RV. “First week... so far it’s really good. I didn’t expect so much publicity and asking about the breathmobile.”

But it's kind of hard to miss a big white bus driving through Oakland.

More after the jump.

Santiago says that the Breathmobile was created partly to address the health concerns for the many people who have lost their medical coverage and whose kids could no longer get their asthma medication. “There is a connection between economic crisis and families not having health care,” she said. Asthma is affecting Oakland kids more than usual, so there was a need of the breathmobile.

“One in four children ages 5–17 years in Alameda County have asthma. Hospitalization rates for asthma in Alameda County is among the highest of the 58 counties in California. Rates of asthma hospitalization were highest among children from birth to 4 years of age. West Oakland has large African-American population that is disproportionately affected by asthma.” Via The Breathmobile

The RV is only a week old and so far it has seen an average of six kids a day. Santiago says those numbers will rise once they get more schools on board. She says for right now the breathmobile is only for Oakland,  but that they are working on extending it to San Leandro.

Santiago says once they start working with more schools, time could be an issue -- but they've already begun thinking about what they will do. “We are going divide our time by week” she says. “One week will be dedicated for one school, than the following week for another, etc.”